Nigerian genocide

Father Leo is a FilAm (American of Philippine parents) who became most famous for his cooking show, and now has a vlog to discuss religious issues in the news.

so Trump is threatening to intervene and so the usual suspects are ignoring what is going on or reframing the story

No it is not anti Christian, but tribal, ignoring that the Fulani tribal attacks became rabid because of Islamicist ideas (i.e. instead of merely moving their cattle onto farmer's fields to eat, which has been going on for centuries, they are killing these farmers. 

No it is not anti Christian because Muslims are being killed. But the Muslims are being killed by the radicalized Islamicist groups are not the radicalized Muslims but the normal Muslim believers who are not in favor of killing their neighbors. 

And my favorite: Hey don't condemn the killing because hey it interferes with us making peace.

from Genocide Watch:

(Makurdi, Nigeria) – In the early hours of Friday, June 13, 2025, more than 200 Christian villagers were slaughtered by heavily armed Fulani jihadists in Yelwata, a farming community in Guma County, Benue State. This mass killing is part of a disturbing wave of targeted violence that has swept across central Nigeria in recent weeks...

 

more details at link.

Bill Maher bring Nigerian debacle to the attention of the west

 The ongoing murder of Christians by Muslims in Nigeria has gotten little press in the USA.

Much of it is by Islamicists of course (including Boko Harum) and some of it is the Muslim Fulani inspired by ISIS attacking farmers, and more recently, criminals who attack to steal stuff or kidnap clergy for ransom.

but although this has been covered in the Christian press, the dirty little secret is that it has been ignored by the US MSM  

The good news: A famous comedian dared to mention it in his show, 

Yet the MSM doesn't say Bill Maher rebukes the MSM for it's lack of coverage: The headline say he "gripes" about it,

Gripes? Why not use the word lament? Gripe usually implies complaining about a petty thing that annoys you, not horror and dismay about genocide. 

But hey, he is Jewish and those he mentions are Christian and Muslim Africans.

On Friday night’s edition of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, the interview guest was Aiden Walker, content creator, internet culture researcher, and author of the Substack newsletter “How To Do Things With Memes.” The panel guests were Michael Smerconish, host of “Smerconish” on CNN and “The Michael Smerconish Program” on SiriusXM; and Rep. Nancy Mace, Republican congresswoman from South Carolina’s 1st district who also sits on the Armed Services, Veterans’ Affairs, and Oversight committees.

 

During the panel segment, Rep. Mace said the slaughter of Christians in Syria was ignored at the UN this week, and Maher interjected that the same is true for Nigeria. He diagnosed the apathy in relation to the situation in Gaza:

REP. NANCY MACE: We saw the world leaders come to New York this week, the UN summit, and we had the president of Syria, the prime minister of Syria there, and while he’s there speaking at the UN, speaking with world leaders, we gave him a visa to travel here. There were Christian villages in Syria that were being burned down.

BILL MAHER: And Nigeria.

REP. NANCY MACE: No, in Syria.

BILL MAHER: No, but both. 

REP. NANCY MACE: In Nigeria, yes.

BILL MAHER: Nigeria, I mean, the fact that this issue has not gotten on people’s radar…

REP. NANCY MACE: Right, no one’s talking about it.

BILL MAHER: It’s pretty amazing. If you don’t know what’s going on in Nigeria, your media sources suck. You are in a bubble.

And again, I’m not a Christian, but they are systematically killing the Christians in Nigeria. They’ve killed… Over 100,000 since 2009. They burned 18,000 churches. This is so much more…

These are the Islamists, Boko Haram. This is much more of a genocide attempt than what is going on in Gaza.

They are literally attempting to wipe out the Christian population of an entire country. Where are the kids protesting this?

REP. NANCY MACE: Thank you. No one will talk about it, so thank you. Absolutely. It’s Africa. No one’s talking about it. And they should be. You can’t read about it on mainstream media. It’s sad. So thank you for bringing it up.

BILL MAHER: Well, because the Jews aren’t involved. That’s why. It’s the Christians and the Muslims who cares.  

The persecution has been covered in various Christian news outlets however, and here is a dicussion on July 10 on EWTN (start at 35 minutes):

The Catholic News Agency has a summary about what is going on there published last week

According to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), at least 145 priests have been kidnapped, 11 have been murdered, and four remain missing since 2015. However, Intersociety claims the reality is much worse. According to its counts, at least 250 Catholic clergy have been attacked in addition to another 350 clergy from other denominations....

The phenomenon, according to the report, is due to a combination of attacks by jihadist groups and organized criminal gangs operating for profit. Priests have been victims of both violent ambushes and financial extortion. “Many were kidnapped for ransoms reaching tens of millions of nairas [Nigreian currency] or thousands of dollars. In other cases, the attackers sought to seize luxury vehicles belonging to the clerics to sell them to criminal networks,” Intersociety details in the report. ... Likewise, there have been systematic kidnappings of Christian children in eastern Nigeria who are sent to Islamic orphanages in the north for forced conversion to Islam, affecting Catholic schools and communities.

Intersociety report here in pdf

Hudson Institute report here which is about the Fulani Muslim herders killing Christian (and Muslim) farmers in nothern Nigeria.

Christianity today report.  

In Africa’s most populous nation, a deadly cycle of violence has unfolded for several years, with Christian clergy and laypeople as well as moderate Muslims falling victim to murder and kidnapping.

The Christian nonprofit Open Doors recently reported that in 2024 some 3,100 Christians were killed and more than 2,000 kidnapped in Nigeria.,,,, The violence is largely the work of two groups—the extremist Islamist militant Boko Haram and its splinter factions, and a range of militias or bandits linked to Fulani herders, Muslims who have waged a campaign of land grabs against Christian farmers in the fertile, and more Christian, “Middle Belt” of central Nigeria as the Fulanis’ grazing land has dried up over the past decades.

,,,

this recent video is from CBN about one attack

here is a report from SkyNews Australia

if only (In our prayers)

 

Russia recruiting African soldiers for the Ukraine

 I did note in past posts about Russian mercenaries in the Sudan and North Africa.

But today's Strategypage has an essay about recruiting Africans to join their fight in the Ukraine. 

Some of these are of course Africans studying or living in Russia (before the cold war ended, a lot of Africans got scholarships to study in Eastern Europe or in Russia: Sometimes the training was good, e.g. doctors, but it also included a lot of political indoctrination back then, However, the help from the USSR was seen as good by some, in contrast to the exploitation by European countries. One wonders where the atrocities of the Wagner group in the Sudan (or the presence of Ukrainians in several conflicts there) etc and the economic exploitation of China comes into this: I should note that I am no longer in touch with what is going on in Africa.

However today's essay is about the missionary outreach of the Russian Orthodox church in Africa. 

Currently Africa has over 730 million Christians, the largest number of any region in the world. Russian Orthodox Church missionaries are actively seeking new converts from other Christian sects as well as Moslem Africans.

 the problem: The Russian Orthodox church is a quasi religious organization that is associated with the state and obeys their policies. Unlike the west,where 800 years ago the separation of church and state was pushed through, this is not true for Russia.

and now the Russian government is pushing converts to join Mother Russia to help them support the military (non combat roles) and of course with promise of good payment, some of these volunteers (and students studying in Russia) end up as soldiers.

this Reuters article from last year is about one African student who joined the Wagner group fighting in the Ukraine.

Wikipedia article notes the number of Orthodox in various countries around the world (something that the western Protestant oriented MSM is blind to).

but yes there is a Wikipedia page on the Russian Orthodoxy in Africa. and notes the changes in jurisdiction of the Orthodox in that continent in recent years.

Masaman has a short video about the Orthodox Christians in the world

African christian report on western progressive dogma

 Apparently the NYTimes finally got around to noticing that the African bishops were sort of angry at the so called Pope for pushing the gay agenda by blessing irregular sexual relationships.

Of course, in Africa this would impact polygamists who want to convert, but the real push back is against the homosexual part, for many reasons

NYTimes is behind a paywall, but the blog GetReligion who reports on the western media's inability to get religion correct in their reports, has a summary here.

NYT puts in the word fear, implying the evil idea of homophobia, but GR asks if maybe they are talking about fear of Islamic attacks. 

And of course the NYTimes doesn't see what Cardinal Sarah has pointed out: that this so called blessing a threat to the institution of the family, which is the core of Africa, (and is already under attack from a capitalism that forced men to work away from family, and under attack by various NGOs and UN treaties that are pushing contraception, abortion and promiscuity including in the schools).

Left out of most western press stories quoting him: The part where he says Africa will defend the family. (a recent book by African bishops essentially said the same thing: That Africa will be the ones who defend the family just as Africa protected the Christ child and Holy Family when they fled to Egypt from Herod).

No, here is how the NYT frames the problem:

Home to 236 million of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics, Africa accounted for more than half of the 16.2 million people who joined the church worldwide in 2021. As bishops and other church leaders on the continent deal with the fallout among their parishioners over the declaration, broader concerns have been raised about whether it could lead to a rift between Pope Francis and a region that is a demographic bright spot for Catholicism.

yup. it's about politics and power.

The GR article then notes something we also see: African priests in the USA who are missionaries. When I lived in Oklahoma, we were essentially mission territory and yes we did have African priests.

 

this recent USA Today headline: “African priests fill American pulpits as 'reverse missionaries,' revitalizing parishes.” Why are so many priests from Africa ending up in America? That’s pretty simply: African Catholics have more children, more converts and more new priests than Americans.

USA Today noted: 

After decades of U.S. missionaries traveling to Africa to convert and preach, the trend is reversing: Across the country, parishes now rely on the ministry of international priests, many from East Africa and Nigeria. ... working in the black areas? Well maybe. but the culture is different.

Actually, there are also a lot of Polish and Vietnamese priests, who seem to be Catholic, out there too. Why?

Meanwhile, the number of American priests is tumbling: there are 10,000 fewer priests now than there were two decades ago. maybe because a lot of seminaries were hostile to men who wanted to be Caholic. Goodbye Good Men...which we saw in the Altoona diocese when I worked there. Is it still that bad? Don't ask me: I live in the Philippines where those leading tend to be into green theology and hip stuff but here in the rural areas, are still into traditional fiestas etc. but alas many are now joining Protestant churches to find Jesus.

But the push of the gay agenda into churches is also splitting other churches,such as the Anglicans and Methodists, including those in the USA.

Religion in Africa: Pentecostal influences

 GetReligion discusses the Islamic vs Christian meme in Africa, as reported in the behind the paywall WSJ.

For later reading.

it notes the charismatic movement in Christian churches is now influencing Islam.

well, nothing new here: Sufi Islam stressed a personal relationship with God, and this was partly due to Hindu (Gita) influence I believe. So a pentecostal revival in Islam might pressure the more rule oriented/terrorist inspiring version of Islam pushed by the Saudis to be less influential. 

I don't know how accurate this report is, since it is by western reporters who believe polls (uh, people will tell pollsters what they want to hear, out of politeness guys, but never mind).... and these reporters seem to think that the Islamic vs Christian wars can be blamed on local Christians (or even local Muslims) whereas it was actually inspired by Saudi/ISIS etc. snf is something new: Islamic slave traders of the Sahel decimated these tribes for centuries (heck, the slave trade goes back to the days of ancient Egypt and is more about cuture than religion per se). 

But I am not an expert here.

Also missing: How African churches are pushing back against the gay agenda in the large Anglican church, and it is local Evangelicals (not the western bigots as the western press always seems to accuse) that is pushing against the US push toward so called gay rights/ birthcontrol/ sex education that approves of premarital sex.

Out of Africa

GetREligionblog reports that the Anglican bishops in Africa have rejected the leadership of the bishop of Canterbury, essentially saying the see of St Augustine is empty. (St Augustine of Canterbury evangelized the Anglo Saxons and reestablished Christianity in England. The See refers to the seat/location i.e. area governed by the bishop).

The Anglican site VirtueOnLine has several reports about this:

a similar schism is perculating in the Catholic church, and Africa might have a major part of that rejection of PC sexual morals. From Cardinal Sarah to CNA in 2015 essentially rejects how western government are pushing gender ideology on Africa. He has written several books, including one with some other bishops in Africa stressing that Africa will save Catholicism from these anti family trends.

"I encourage you to speak with clarity and with one credible voice and with filial love of the Church. Be conscious of the mission of the Church; protect the sacredness of marriage which is now being attacked by all forms of ideologies that intend to destroy the family in Africa. Do not be afraid to stress the teaching of the Church on marriage." In a major six-page interview released during the same period in the French magazine Famille Chrétienne , Cardinal Sarah said: "At the synod next October we will address, I hope, the question of marriage in an entirely positive manner, seeking to promote the family and the values that it bears. The African bishops will act to support that which God asks of man concerning the family, and to receive that which the Church has always taught. . . . Why should we think that only the Western vision of man, of the world, of society is good, just, universal? The Church must fight to say no to this new colonization."

the so called synod on synodality is being pushed with the idea to let people talk about what concerns them: but of course these meetings are not with practicing Catholics as much as with those eager to change the church, and like most institutions that practice wokeness, there is a danger that it will push out true believers who feel their voices are being ignored.

thanks to Mother Angelica, despite Catholics leaving the church en masse in the USA (some to no religion, but about half to other Christian churches), about half the bishops remain faithful to Christianity.  This is similar to the few Anglican bishops in the UK who oppose these trends, but who are slowly being replaced by those obeying the non Christian reformers.

Alas, due to liberation theology and Pope Francis' shennanigans in adding pachimama pagan rituals, there is also an exodus to evangelical churches in Latin America and in Hispanic immigrants in the USA.... there, similar to that in the Philippines, where out bishops push a green agenda that will make poor people poorer, help China, but hey it will get them praise from the elites here.

sigh.

Pope Francis: Obey me Minions

there are a lot of fault lines in church history, including if the bishops are devised from below or from above.

If you let the 'people' chose the bishops, it allows a coterie to push their own guy into power (as in the early church) but if you let the Pope/Vatican do it, you can get a person who the locals ( or the locals in charge) don't like. In places where bishops are powerful or governments are tyrannical, that can cause problems. Think of the power struggles of the Anglo Saxon vs the norman bishops who wanted to reform the locals. Hence the Philippines has it's own breakaway church from the Catholics, and of course in history a lot of the reason for Lutheran and Anglican churches had to do more with politics and nationalism than with dogma.

Since an isolated church can easily slide into heresy or nepotism, you can see the problem.

The church is not just spiritual, but has intitutions such as schools and hospitals, and in some places the priest/ minister is the most educated person around. This has changed in a lot of areas today, thanks to universal education and cheap books (and not the internet) but you still see how politics can rear it's ugly head in church matters.

Nor is it a Catholic problem, as we see as churches that are formed around a charismatic leader degenerates as the leader dies and his sons are not as holy as he was. Think Pastor Shuller in the USA or the InaCristo here in the Philippines.

To outsiders, it looks like trivia, but often it is a subtle thing that means a lot to those involved.

Pope Francis' tendency to push people around is not good: The pope is a pastor/shepherd, not a dictator, no matter what the Fundie protestants think.

And his love of power, not sensitivity to culture, is seen in this Vatican power play against a Nigerian diocese that doesn't want an outsider as their leader (even an outsider from the same tribe)...

according to the comments, he is from a different subtribe who speak a different dialect,

The Tribes have their own dialects and see themselves as unique entities from within. However we all see them as Igbo from outside.
The tribes include
-Onitsha
-Ika
-Nsukka
-Ezza
-Mbaise
-Abriba
-Ikwerre
-Oguta
Etc etc etc.
Their (Igbo) ethnology is one of the most interesting in Nigeria.
Sadly, they are misunderstood.

and the writer clarifies the problem in a second comment...
The diocese is rural and largely away from the city but it is dense in terms of the strength of numbers, both parishioners and priests. They’ve literally taken it upon themselves to train and build this diocese. They’ve also supported and trained many priests from around the country of different tribes. These priests number in the thousands. More than any rural diocese in Nigeria.
With this, there are about 1000 possible persons who qualify from the local diocese and probably up to 2000+ priests that qualify from the state.
This is based on their knowledge of the diocese, its peculiarities and difficulties.
Interestingly, out of these numbers from the diocese, not one has ever been made a Bishop anywhere. So the question is why??
Shockingly, it’s nepotism. The church Ij the east was first domiciled in the Anambra axis and even through others in the east have grown. The Anambra axis doesn’t recognize this fact and tends to through their influence dictate to others who may have slightly different views than they have. This to the local priest is unfair and a sort of denial on the part of the church of both the progress they’ve made and the sacrifices they continue to make.

Therefore, the nepotism claim or tribalism is reversed. Let me explain.
In Nigeria today, this Anambra archdiocese accounts for up to 15 Bishops. Many sent to other smaller dioceses. The argument here was that the Ahiara diocese isn’t a small diocese but has successfully run itself with its own priests and schools and hospitals for about 30years.
They therefore see this as a set back and the people I’ve spoken to see it as if the over 1000 priests they have trained and or sponsored are not good enough or are just plain evil people. This is not fair.
Like I said none of them has ever been sent to oversee their fellow priests anywhere in the universal Catholic Church.
Well, I think they should accept the decision since they’ve made their points for those who care to seek the facts. The question is wil their rural people understand why they or their leaders are not worthy of this honor??

I don’t know!!

 this is a local paper and the comment section is quite interesting.

essentially most of the bishops are all from the same diocese, and locals see this as a power play by this outside diocese to make their local church be seen as inferior to the big shot outsiders who want to run all the local churches.

Yup. Local politics is involved, but also a question if the church is universal or local: should the people have input into who leads them?

. More here.

Crux summary here.

Francis lays out his demands, accusing the recalcitrant priests of wanting “to destroy the church,” and saying he’d even considered suppressing the diocese. Instead, he’s demanding they all write to “clearly manifest total obedience to the pope,” including their willingness to accept the bishop he appoints. No matter how you slice it, it’s a dramatic show of papal muscle. Even Francis conceded, “this seems pretty harsh,” but said he was doing it “because the People of God is scandalized, and Jesus reminds us that whoever causes scandal has to face the consequences.

No, I didn't work in Nigeria so am not knowledgible about the ins and outs.

And does the holyman caste have anything to do with this?I don't know.

my work in Africa was in rural Zimbabwe with the Mashona, and in Monrovia Liberia. Yes I worked with Nigerians there but didn't get to know the culture. So I post this as an FYI.

Anglican corruption in Zimbabwe

NYTimes article
excerpt:

In a three-hour interview in his office, Mr. Kunonga, a portly man with a gravelly voice, scoffed at the idea that he or his allies had sought to have anyone killed. In fact, if he had wanted anyone killed, he said, it would have been Bishop Gandiya, his rival as the legitimate bishop of Harare.

But there was no need for violence, Mr. Kunonga said, because he was already winning the legal battle to control church properties.

“You must have a very good reason to kill people,” he said. “Being a political scientist, I know who to eliminate if I wanted to physically, and to make it effective. I’m a strategist.”

Mr. Kunonga added, “If I want to pick on people to kill, Gandiya would not survive here.” As for allegations that he and his men were involved in Mrs. Mandeya’s killing, Mr. Kunonga retorted, “What would an illiterate 89-year-old woman do to me to deserve death or assassination?”

GetReligionBlog points out that the NYTimesg by ignoring that the "bishop" attended a very liberal left wing seminary for training, ignores the communist aspect of the matter: The Times spins their own article, not to bash the left who loves Mugabe and helped get him into power, but to bash the US christians who oppose the homosexual agenda...

Anglicans locked out

from the UK telegraph:

The apostate bishop Nolbert Kunonga has locked the doors of the churches, so only the ZANU PF can attend...so Anglicans have to worship elsewhere.

Blessed Isidore

from Fountain of Elias, the story of Isidore Bakanja, who was beaten by his white employer and died as a result. (Republic of Congo, 1909)
His crime? teaching other laborers to pray.
more HERE.

Religious war in Africa?

Not about Zimbabwe per se, but an analysis of what is going on in other states.

From Ralph Peters in the NYPost:

The bombings that recently butchered World Cup fans in Uganda were just the latest in a long line of crazed attacks on African Christians by Islamist fanatics. In the central states of Nigeria -- Africa's most-populous country -- religious pogroms and counter-pogroms between Muslims and Christians have become routine.

In Kenya, al Shabaab terrorists from neighboring Somalia stir up trouble and make grotesque threats. And we all know what bestial acts Sudan's Islamist government has perpetrated against black Christians over the decades.

Throughout the region, patience is wearing thin. Africa's impassioned forms of charismatic and Pentecostal Christianity won't turn the other cheek forever. The coming backlash could be ferocious ....

(Peters here attributes the lethargy of Islam to the Saudis who are building mosques staffed with their own radical immans, trying to impose a "foreign" Islam on local Muslims, one whose religious intolerance leads to their children not learning modern subjects in school, only out of date religious dogma which won't get them jobs that can get them out of poverty, but will inspire them to become suicide bombers)

When Islamist terrorists attack African Christians, they're playing with a fire that burns white hot.

Pushed far enough, Christians will respond -- and it won't be pretty. The African church could become the church-ultra-militant.

Of course, a Christian crusade in response to jihad would be just fine with many Saudis and Gulf Arabs. They don't care about the suffering of individual Muslims -- only about Islam.

Thus the Saudis fund the provocative construction of mosques where there are few or no Muslims, from western Tanzania to eastern Tennessee. Every mosque helps stake a claim for the dar ul-Islam, extending the boundaries of the caliphate about which Islamists fantasize...

Meanwhile, the shared goal of the Saudis, al Qaeda, the Taliban and Somalia's al Shabaab is to prevent Muslims from integrating into non-Muslim host societies. In Kenya, a successful Muslim population that interacted and intermarried would be the worst outcome to Islam's commissars. Massacre would be preferable. And a violent Christian reaction would serve as propaganda to recruit the Islamist foot-soldiers who strap on the suicide bombs.

As radical Islam's hallucinatory ambitions continue to expand, the potential for tragedy on a grand scale soars. Religious strife could tear Nigeria apart, but elsewhere in Africa Muslims would swiftly find themselves on the losing end.

In Islamist extremism, we're confronted with a death-cult, not a faith -- while the vibrant Christianity of Africa pulses with life.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_coming_crusade_Z9uUphPo0KFvXK5i3wzlzJ#ixzz0u7zBrCxx

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StrategyPage has more HERE